She Was the One: An Animated 9/11 Remembrance

The first day was all smoke, debris, orga­nized may­hem, and pure dis­be­lief. The next day, real­i­ty hit home. That’s when you walked out in the streets (in my case, Brook­lyn), and saw your first miss­ing per­son sign, one of hun­dreds you’d see over the com­ing months in Man­hat­tan and the out­er bor­oughs. The num­bers you heard on TV, the body count, became real faces — real peo­ple.

In Octo­ber 2003, Sto­ryCorps, a non­prof­it ded­i­cat­ed to record­ing oral his­to­ries of every kind, got under­way with a small Sto­ry­Booth in Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal. Eight years lat­er, it has record­ed and archived more than 35,000 inter­views from 70,000 par­tic­i­pants. And, more recent­ly, it has turned its focus to 9/11 and the days that fol­lowed. The goal: to memo­ri­al­ize in sound every per­son lost on that day. You can vis­it the emerg­ing audio archive here.

The poignant clip above, which tells the per­son­al sto­ry of Richie Pecorel­la and Karen Juday, appears in a larg­er series of Sto­ryCorps ani­mat­ed videos, all avail­able here. You can sup­port the Sto­ryCorps project by mak­ing a dona­tion, large or small today.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Archive of 9/11 TV Cov­er­age Launch­es with 3,000+ Hours of Video


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Comments (7)
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  • I swore I was­n’t going to lis­ten or watch 9/11 speech­es, trib­utes etc. But I got to this site through a tweet and my heart kept me here. It’s a love sto­ry that can’t be read — Richie’s voice says it all. And I’m glad I stayed here. Richie — you have suf­fered great­ly. I am so sor­ry for your loss and hope that her mem­o­ry keeps you strong.

  • Patricia says:

    I think my heart just broke all over again. Richie, there are no words pos­si­ble, except I’m so sor­ry.

  • Matt says:

    That is so very sad.

    “Sto­ryCorps aims to record at least one inter­view for each life lost in the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks.” I won­der if that includes the hijack­ers, as that would be worth see­ing too.

  • louis says:

    Richie, This is a good start to doing some good…Loved the sto­ry I’m orig­i­naly from Brooklyn,and i have a broth­er Richard that still screams at car’s,and oth­er driver’s.Karen must have real­ly been a bless­ing from God to make you want to change, may she rest in God’s lov­ing arms…peace to you this 9/11.…

  • Zada Shindelar says:

    The CORRECT thing to do is STOP wast­ing mon­ey on Memo­ri­als and START pay­ing health­care costs for the RESPONDERS. While Memo­ri­als can be personal…healthcare is LIFE OR DEATH! Do the CORRECT thing, elim­i­nate waste & HELP the LIVING!

  • Deb N says:

    @Zada, as much as I think the dead should be hon­ored, we can do so by help­ing the liv­ing stay that way. I had­n’t thought about it before but you seem to have spent a lot of time think­ing about this.

  • Diane says:

    Great sto­ry and my heart goes out to all 911 vic­tims. 911 vic­tims should be remem­bered in our hearts, but now we must move on and help the liv­ing.

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